Now, to the storm. I spoke to you last on Sunday, right before the storm arrived. Actually about 10 hours before the storm arrived. This storm was like none that I'd experienced before. It wasn't that it was very strong where I'm at, but the winds were sustained for so long. We had 30+ mph winds for a good 12 hours, and we had 50+ mph winds for a good 4 hours. That length of sustained winds did all the damage. Almost the entire county was without power, and briefly without water. The water lasted a day. The power was a far different story. If you've been following along on Instagram, then you would see the random posts I would get up. I got some stuff in the storm and then after, as well as the random post about how things were going. I finally got power back last night, which was Thursday, and the internet back today. In the meantime, I set up a kitchen on the front porch with a little portable propane stove.
With limited supplies and kitchen cooking appliances, I have to say, I made some pretty good meals. The first morning I broke out the last of the frozen waffles. I found out that if you watch them carefully, you can make frozen waffles in a small skillet on a camp stove. Along the way, I made chicken stir fry, breakfast tacos, quesadillas, and if I went into another day, I had rice and beans planned. Not real sure how that was going to turn out. It was going to be baked beans for the beans and minute rice. That one could have been a disaster.
Enough about the cooking though, you came here for the storm. I went out several times during the night, since I couldn't sleep with all the noise and the lack of AC. There was something new for me in this storm. At one point, there would be these lulls of silence. I'd never experienced that at all. I ran out on the front porch during one of them and it was quiet with very little wind. Then I could hear a loud roar. My first thought was that it was a tornado, but they say that always sounds like a train. Out of nowhere came a deluge of rain. It was as if someone had taken a giant bucket and dumped it over my house. it was not a curtain of rain, but a wall of water. I'd never seen that ever. I got some footage outside in the storm and at one point nearly got blown over and down the street. I managed to maintain my balance like a ninja.
When the power finally went out everywhere, it was pitch black, maybe even darker than pitch black. I couldn't even see my hand right in front of my face. It was rather cool. I wanted to go out and ride Saki in it, but I decided that just wasn't a good idea. I wouldn't be able to see debris in the road in time to avoid it, so Saki stayed in the garage at night.
The next day, after checking out the yard and cleaning up broken limbs, and helping the neighbors pick up theirs, I headed to work to see how the building held up. The craziest thing was in the front drive when I pulled up.
That is not our dumpster. That is from across the street. The other strange thing about it being there, is that there are no scrape marks anywhere around it. We all figure that the street flooded and it floated over. The street where I work has a tendency to flood in just a brief down pour, so a good ten hours of constant rain lifted that dumpster up and floated it across the street into our driveway.
Since I didn't have any power, I decided that after a couple of days, I would head up to the humane society and give a visit to Gypsy to see how she was doing. When I got there, they had just gotten power back, so they allowed me to go back in the kennel. It was a bit sad seeing all those dogs in their cages. I found Gypsy and she was clearly agitated. She didn't seem to recognize me either. She barked and snarled a bit. I'm sure the storm and the lack of power bothered her as much as us humans, so I'm not holding it against her. There was one bright spot. Two of the women that have seen me interact with Gypsy walked by as I was there, one of them gave me a small treat to give to her, and she took it without any anxiety, but as soon as she finished eating it was back to the snarled lip and barking. My hope for the visit, is that it would light a fire under their feet so that they would get back to me about that in home meeting with The Truff. Only time will tell if it worked. Still haven't heard from them. I do realize that they are probably very busy getting everything back in order, and a very large tree was down into one of their play pens for the dogs.
I got internet back today, just in time to have a package arrive so that I could celebrate the power of the internet. I don't think I've talked about Rick & Morty here yet. I have discovered Rick & Morty, and I am now a giant fan. I've heard people talk about it before, but never grasped onto what they were saying, so I never tried to look for it. A few months ago, there was a lot of buzz going around about it, and it turns out that the new season had begun. I stumbled across a marathon of past episodes leading up to the season premier. I watched and I was hooked. It was time to add to my Funko Pop collection, and the first one arrived today. it was Morty and here he is.
The way I describe Rick & Morty is a very crass version of Doctor Who. It is hilarious, and if you want to laugh your tail off, then give it a try.
After that showed up, I went out and trimmed back more of a bush that had been decimated in the storm. It was hot, the bush had thorns, and it pretty much sucked on all levels, but it needed to be done. The grocery store was next. With the house at full power, it was time to put the fuel back into it. Food was needed, and the local Publix didn't let me down. They were still understocked, but they had all of the important things. The power is back, the food is in the fridge, and another hurricane has come and went. This is Florida, we do this sometimes, a couple of times a year. This was the most damaging one I've been through in my history. I know other storms have been deadlier and more costly, but this was bad. Not as bad as originally thought it would be, and I'm very thankful for that, but it was bad. I checked the radar at one point in the middle of the night, and the entire state was covered by Irma. From tip to tail. For comparison. if you used a quarter to represent Irma, Jose which was more of a normal size storm, it would be a dress shirt button. I looked at both of them on the map, and Jose was five times smaller than Irma. The storm was massive and it was lucky that weather currents and landmass worked against it to weaken it considerably by the time it reached us.
The rebuild and clean up as begun, but Florida is open for business. Peace in and goodnight.
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